Social Media Use Amongst Politicians

Social media the best way for presidential candidates to announce their campaigns?

In today’s social media saturated age, as more politicians announce their presidential candidacies to officially begin their campaigns, it would be easy to think that platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others would replace the traditional speeches. However, speeches are still the preferred way, so far, for most of the declared candidates.

2016, though, has seen Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz go online first to make their announcements. Hillary Clinton used an online video on her website, as well as Twitter, while Ted Cruz tweeted “I’m running for president and I hope to earn your support!” (Remember, online video for marketing is expected be a trend this year). Of course, every candidate has a Facebook page.

Social media announcements have still to catch up. According to Pew, “Since the 2004 election cycle, 27 of the 41 candidates who appeared in the Republican or Democratic presidential primary debates (or have announced for 2016) included a public address in their formal announcement, according to our calculations”

When it comes to sharing political content, although Facebook rules in amount of users, the politically engaged see political content on Twitter. “Four-in-ten (41%) Twitter users who are very interested in politics say that at least half of the posts that they see are political. This compares with about a quarter (26%) of highly politically-interested Facebook users who say the same.”

Will 2016 be the election cycle when candidates use newer platforms to get in front of their audience and ahead of their opponents?